Couple in mail-order-bride raps placed on BI watchlist

An American couple were placed yesterday on the immigration’s watch-list on suspicion of leading a mail-order-bride syndicate that matches Filipino women for marriage to foreigners.

Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez said he ordered the inclusion of William McKnight and his wife Lilian in the bureau’s watchlist upon the request of the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime (PCTC) which investigated and filed criminal charges against the couple.

Rodriguez said the watchlist order would prevent the couple from leaving the country without clearance from the regional trial court in Butuan City where they are charged with estafa and violation of Republic Act 6955, or the mail-order-bride law.

He added that the McKnights were issued arrest warrant by Butuan RTC Judge Victor Tomaneng last May but the American couple are out on bail after posting a bond of P16,000 each.

In a letter to Rodriguez, PNP Deputy Director General Leandro Mendoza disclosed that McKnight has filed a motion to travel abroad, a move the center interpreted as a means to evade criminal prosecution.

Mendoza said the center suspects that the Americans will not return if they are allowed to leave the country. He also said that the center has already asked the court to issue a hold departure order on them.

Records of the case showed that the McKnights, together with Filipinos Rudelyn Uriarte and Elivira Mandap, were charged by the Department of Justice with violating the mail-order-bride law by setting up a business of matching male foreigners with Filipino women through advertising and promotion in media and soliciting Filipino girls for the purpose.

A certain James Kimber, an American who filed the complaint against the couple, alleged that the McKnights duped him of some $25,000 by faking his marriage to Uriarte.

Kimber said he found out that his marriage to Uriarte was never registered as the latter was already married to another American who was also introduced to her by McKnight.

Kimber said he read about the couple’s business in an American magazine in 1998 and had written letters to several girls in the Philippines before coming to Manila upon the invitation of the McKnights, who introduced him to several Filipinas, including Uriarte. – Rey Arquiza